Balder Saintrelmaux
Basics
Name: Balder Saintrelmaux
Race: Midlander Hyur
Striking features: Two scars on his face from claws, and a large claw mark across his chest along with many other smaller scars across his body (hidden with glamour)
Hair color: Red
Age: 21
Height: 6'0" (182 cm)
Birthplace: Ishgard
Current Residence: Ishgard (Goblin, Empyreum, W1 42 room 16)
Occupation: Adventurer (specialization in monster hunting)
Likes: Training, fighting, his friends, animals
Dislikes: Injustice, people who abuse their power, authority
Fears: Being powerless to save someone, watching a loved one die, large fires
Talents: Acute senses, Dark Arts, strength, weapons
Ineptitudes: white magic, social skills, subtlety, dancing
(Author's Note: this is a lot, I know, it's also probably pretty hard to read and full of grammatical issues. But once I started writing I couldn't stop, I thought about cutting it down but said "eh, fuck it" enjoy!)
Early Childhood
Balder was born into a lowborn family in a village close to the border of Dravania. His family was fairly normal two loving parents and an older brother. His mother helped out around the village helping out where she could. While his father was a member of the Temple Knights, and was being considered for knighthood, despite his lowborn roots. His older brother, Tyr, was born 7 years before and was always training to one day become a squire after a knight took and interest in him.
Balder was an outgoing and kind child, always seeking to help his family where he could. Whether it was helping his mother carry stuff around town, or taking care of his father and brother after they were done training. He was known around the village as a bright light in a dark night, always doing his best to cheer everyone up and make people laugh. All he ever wanted was to be someone who the village could trust like his parents, and like any Ishgardian child he always dreamed of becoming a Dragoon. But this idyllic village life would not last forever.
Childhood
The Attack
a few weeks after Balder's seventh birthday on a warm pre-calamity Coerthean night in the spring. The green grass blowing carelessly in the spring air, still wet from recent rainfall. Balder's father was still up drinking after greeting a group of Orthodoxy clergy men and taking them to drink at a nearby tavern. Balder was sound asleep in the room he shared with Tyr holding a toy his father had brought home from Ishgard for him. As the embers of the dying fire shed their dull light and as Balder's parents began to settle in for the night. A furious roar rung out through the night, that of a dragon.Balder's father stormed into his room, while he sat there panicking while Tyr tired to calm him down. Their father told Tyr to take his brother and get out of town as soon as possible giving Tyr one of his old swords. Tyr very quickly got his armor on and began to carry the still crying Balder on his back out of the village with their mother following as the horde began to descend on the village.Balder still remembers the smell of ash and fire that night as the dragons roared and burned his home to the ground. He remembers the feel of the metal armor on his chest as his brother carried him, the sound of his mother telling him everything was going to be ok. He remembers when one of the Horde landed in front of them. He remembers when Tyr began to fight the wyrm to protect him and his mother, falling almost instantly. He remembers when his mother shielded him from the wyrm and her dying with a smile trying to reassure him that everything would be fine. He remembers the feeling of pain searing across his face from the wyrm's talons as he lost consciousness.
The Bishop
Balder was unconscious for the next few days. Tossing and turning violently in his sleep, constantly crying out for his family. Five days after his village was razed by the Dravanian Horde. Balder awoke from the memories that were replaying in his head attempting to punch the dragon looming over him. His fist did not contact the scaly hide of the wyrm but rather narrowly missed a girl around his age who was standing near his bed. After he awoke she quickly ran to go find the Bishop who resided over the orphanage he soon learned he was in.The Bishop was a kind man with a kind face. He very slowly and carefully told Balder where he was and what had happened. As Balder was taken to the room he would be staying in the girl who was there when he had woken up introduced herself. She said her name was Nanna and that she had also lost her parents in a raid from the Dravanians. Over the next couple of days Balder learned that everyone here had a similar story. They had all lost their parent in a Dravanian raid. The Bishop took them in for that reason, he wanted to help them grow and develop to be good Ishgardian Knights.The Bishop taught the children how the Dravanians were evil uncaring creatures who wanted nothing more than to kill and slaughter the innocent Ishgardians. Most lessons were history, explaining the history of their proud nation and their war with the evil Nidhogg. Days they weren't in the classroom were spent doing rigorous and physical training. All to ensure they grew into the strong Ishgardians The Bishop wanted them to be. As time went on The Bishop started to change. He became more rough with the training, more critical of the children.Balder had been there for three years before who The Bishop truly was began to slip through. He was a zealot, the reason he took these children in was not to care for them and to raise them. No, it was to cultivate knights and inquisitors who could kill heretics without thought. Who would seek any evidence no matter how thin to convict enemies of the church. Balder and Nanna being 10 and 11 respectfully were naturally looked up to as some of the older kids at the orphanage. The younger kids would come to them crying due to the amount of work they were forced to do. Everyday they were woken up at 5 am for morning workouts, then fed the bare minimum to sustain them and help them grow. This would be followed by lessons on history and the orthodoxy which led into their lunch. afternoons would be a post lunch workout followed by more lessons, but this time for magic and various sciences. They would then eat dinner before one final workout and sleep at 10pm to ensure they got 8 hours of sleep. While the orphans obviously did not enjoy the treatment they got. They were still thankful to The Bishop for rescuing them and raising them so they did not often complain and just saw the opportunity to help the man who had saved their lives.
Balder's Death
Life in this time for Balder was anything but good. But the various other orphans were a source of encouragement and motivation for Balder. He saw what motivated his older brother to work so hard. When you have family who rely on you, you want to do everything in your power to help them. Balder and Nanna were both consistently top of the class in lectures and were the most physically fit of all of the other orphans. The Bishop took special interest in them, giving them more freedoms and food. Which both would end up sharing with the younger children who needed it more than they did. Balder saw the many other orphans as family, but over time as he began to enter adolescence he began to see Nanna as something more. The Bishop didn't teach them anything more than necessary, Balder had no idea what this emotion was or what it meant so he just ignored it and moved on with his life.Seven months after Balder turned 12, The Bishop pulled him aside after he had finished putting away training weapons that he had been using to practice his swordplay to tell him something. The Bishop told Balder there was one final test that he had to do before he would be accepted as a squire. Balder had to prove his loyalty to the Church of Ishgard by killing a heretic. Thankfully, The Bishop already had one ready. In fact there was a whole village nearby that was full of them that they were using as a hideout. The Bishop gathered some Temple Knights and took Balder to go raid the town and punish the heretics. They went through in the morning and talked to the local guard before continuing on.They made camp half a mile outside the village while The Bishop went off the check the area. The night was cold and dark, and the grass blew carelessly in the wind. The Moon's light illuminating this village that held suspected heretics. Balder realized how similar this was to the night his village was attacked. Down to the contingent of Temple Knights coming through in the morning to meet with the local guard. In fact, as Balder continued to think on the relation between this attack and the one on his home he started to see more and more familiarities. He even was beginning to think he remembered The Bishop being there at his village the day before the attack. He was going over to ask the captain of the squadron of temple knights they had come with what the plan was to find where the heretics were when he heard it. The roar he had heard all those years ago, that of a dragon.Within minutes the knights were in battle positions heading down to deal with the ongoing attack. Balder, who leading up to this moment was more than willing to raid this village and attack, was frozen in place unable to move. As the battle raged on in the distance Balder collapsed to his knees as the memories of his village's slaughter came rushing back. He saw the same things that had haunted his dreams for the past 5 years. He saw his family falling one by one to dragons trying to protect him again as the roar of combat could be heard in the distance. But this time there was something new. The Bishop showed up after the fight with what seemed like a sort of control over the beasts to collect Balder and take him in to the orphanage. The second this memory returned to him he regained control, and now he was filled with nothing but uncontrollable rage.The years of ridiculous training had payed off in the long run. Balder was now fast enough to sprint the whole half-mile into the village to join in the fight before too much time had passed. Like a demon Balder weaved through the burning village with a deadly elegance. Slaying the Horde with a trained precision, going beyond what a normal Hyur might be capable of. His rage propelling him forward he worked to secure an escape route for the villagers along with the temple knights. Had this been a normal random attack on a village that Balder had happened to be at, his knighthood would be all but guaranteed. But this was all but a normal dragon attack. While Balder kept fighting he looked for where the dragons were coming from, he assumed that The Bishop would be there. Once pinpointing the location Balder headed straight there killing anything that dared to get in his path.when Balder arrived to the clearing that The Bishop was hiding in, the armor Balder was wearing that once shone a pure white was now dulled with the blood of the dragons. The Bishop only had praises to sing of the young boy, complimenting his ferocity. Balder listened to the man who had murdered his entire family go on and on about how proud he was of Balder. While Balder sat there listening every second growing angrier and angrier. Balder managed to keep his anger in long enough for The Bishop to finally say, "it's pathetic how fast your father fell for someone of his prestige, at least I had the chance to nurture you to be better than he was." This was the point that Balder lost all control, clenching the hilt of his sword hard enough for it to start to creak as he charged forward.The fight did not last long, Balder having lost any control he once had once too easy of a fight for the experienced Bishop. Balder's own fatigue from the hours of fighting beforehand also slowing down the unhinged pre-teen did nothing to help his odds either. As he attacked like the savage beast The Bishop thought the dragons were. All Balder could see was red, all he could hear were screams, and he could taste the blood in his mouth. The Bishop eventually grew tired of torturing the child he had turned into this beast and put him down with a simple stab to the stomach. Even as Balder began to fade he still tried to attack The Bishop attempting to bite and scratch at him as he was left bleeding out in the clearing. As he lay there waiting for the end he heard the clinking of plate armor as he was slung over a shoulder covered in cold metal.
Adolescence
Contact
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